1. Technical Field—Field of Endeavor
The invention, it its several embodiments, pertains to direct submission of input data, particularly to direct submission of print data with native and non-native formats to a target imaging device.
2. State of the Art
An imaging device, such as a printer, may be directed to render an output based on a received input data. Such input data may be in various formats, such as printer-ready format and device-independent format. Considering that, device-independent data typically does not have printer control instructions, ways of enabling a user to specify job settings for such data and particular to the imaging device are highly desirable. Printer-ready data, however, typically contains printer-control settings. If job-wide settings are specified, for example, via a spool header, it is possible that one or more printer-control instructions in the printer-ready data will potentially be in conflict with spool header information. Ways of minimizing or removing such potential conflict are also highly desirable. In some cases, an imaging device may receive a spool file to be rendered. In these cases, one or more spool header information may not be native to the imaging device. Ways of specifying spool header information, such as job settings, native to the imaging device are also desirable. Some imaging systems today distribute the load between a host and the imaging device, e.g., a printer. Ways of distributing such load within these systems, e.g., to minimize or reduce the raster image processing requirements on the printer, are also desirable.